TI Development under Linux

[+Vorticon]

I've been slowly migrating to linux over the past couple of months as an experiment to see how well this will work for me. I inherited a first generation Microsoft Surface Book from work when I upgraded my office computer, and since I did not need yet another Windows machine, I decided to install Linux Mint on it. I did lose the tablet and pen functionality of the laptop in the process, by I was never a fan of tablets to start with so no big deal there.

 

I have to say that so far I've been able to easily do 95% of my work on it, both hobby and professional, with the exception of VPN access to the university resources and remote Citrix hospital access which I am still looking into. DosBox and Steam round up my gaming needs. Kerbal Space Program  and Microsoft Space Simulator on linux: who knew???

 

The best surprise was the fact that all my usual TI development tools work under linux using Wine, including Classic 99, albeit the latter is a tad slower than under Windows. As a matter of fact, everything I have thrown at Wine has worked so far, such as TI99Dir, TICodEd, Winasm994a and Convert9918, thus recreating my entire development tool chain. Magellan works perfectly as well since it's Java based and Visual Studio Code is available for linux.

I will however start leaning more on MAME since it is native to linux and emulation execution speed is thus not affected here, at least for real-time testing of projects.

 

So for the past several weeks I've migrated the ongoing development of Kroll & Prumni to the linux machine and so far no issues. I am in real danger of not going back to Windows...

 

[Retrospect]

I am wanting my next laptop to be pre-installed with Linux.  I'm pleased that the current WINE still works with Classic99.  I have a few gripes about the way that Windows is going, hence my desire to get back into Linux.  Plus, there's actually a few linux applications for games development and video production that are quite nifty.  I'm sure I heard that Fuse Basic will work in Linux?  (That's the BBC-Micro Basic for PC's), you can use PNG files as sprites and backgrounds.  

 

Years ago, I had a linux laptop with classic99 running under Wine, and the only issue I had was the screen in Classic99 sometimes didn't update.  So you'd boot it up, see the colour-bar welcome screen, press a key, hear a beep, but you'd still be in that same screen.  I think that's been ironed out long ago.

[WhataKowinkydink]

8 hours ago, Retrospect said:

I am wanting my next laptop to be pre-installed with Linux.

Same here - been looking lately too as it's time for a replacement for this old Latitude D400, which struggles to do much of anything these days.

9 hours ago, Vorticon said:

I've been slowly migrating to linux

Welcome to Linux -- i switched almost a decade ago, and with the "exception" of the occasional game (after all games aren't that important) that just doesn't work in WINE, I've never looked back.

[+mizapf]

In fact, I already have more games for Linux in my Steam account than I can handle. The games are not super-new, but in particular indie games are there, also ports by Feral (Tomb Raider, Alien: Isolation etc.), that's good enough for me. And for the other games I still have my game launcher platform on dual boot called ... wait ... Doors? ah, no, Windows. ?

 

Note to any newbie in Linux that you should be open-minded and patient, and you should look out for your programs and tools that do the job you need. It need not be Microsoft Office, LibreOffice is a very good replacement. You don't find Adobe stuff? Well, have a look at GIMP. You should just not start with "I need that one program".

 

Embrace the shell. The usual programs that I launch after startup is Firefox, Thunderbird, and a bash window. Just in case, I'll certainly need it during the next five minutes.

[HOME AUTOMATION]

Haven't fooled with LINUX in at least a decade.

 

I used to go to Internet Archive and try tweaked builds...

 

 

Dunno, really.

Edited December 24, 2021 by HOME AUTOMATION

[senior_falcon]

Does the clipboard work for you when running under Wine?

[+retroclouds]

Myself I’m not so convinced about linux on the desktop.

 

Don’t get me wrong I like linux a lot. In my day-to-day job I’m doing linux server administration and it’s great.

It’s just that on the desktop and when using a GUI it’s not on the same level as the windows or mac GUI.

And then there’s these little glitches on the desktop where sometimes thing just don’t work out as planned and proper linux drivers are

missing (thinking about some of the intel nuc drivers here).

 

Long story short, for my desktop I’ll be switching back to windows and use WSL2.

That way I can do anything on the command line in WSL2.

For the stuff I do on the desktop WSL2 is the best of both worlds really, as it offers great integration.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[+Vorticon]

7 hours ago, senior_falcon said:

Does the clipboard work for you when running under Wine?

Yes it does.

[+Vorticon]

And now I have managed to create a network drive for my TIPI for easy remote access. Admittedly not as intuitive a process as in Windows, but that's what YouTube is for ?

[GDMike]

Anyone have classic 99 running on a Linux machine yet? I've got extra laptops and I'd like to NoT have windoze.

[+TheBF]

17 hours ago, GDMike said:

Anyone have classic 99 running on a Linux machine yet? I've got extra laptops and I'd like to NoT have windoze.

"The best surprise was the fact that all my usual TI development tools work under linux using Wine, including Classic 99, albeit the latter is a tad slower than under Windows. As a matter of fact, everything I have thrown at Wine has worked so far, such as TI99Dir, TICodEd, Winasm994a and Convert9918, thus recreating my entire development tool chain. Magellan works perfectly as well since it's Java based and Visual Studio Code is available for linux."

 

Vorticon does as posted above.

[pjduplooy]

retroclouds

 

Have u used any graphical apps (WSLg) on WSL2?

[SteveB]

I haven't found a linux native emulator to read FIAD files. I discussed with @mizapf the MAME file-handling some weeks ago ... MAME reads the file on startup and is not reading any updates. So while TiCodEd may be compiled on Linux, it looks impossible for now to load an updated program in an already running emulator. Perhaps Classic99 V4 will fill that gap one day...

[WhataKowinkydink]

On 12/25/2021 at 4:05 PM, GDMike said:

Anyone have classic 99 running on a Linux machine yet? I've got extra laptops and I'd like to NoT have windoze

I haven't tried C99 under WINE in a while, and WINE seems to have matured since then.  Why not give it a shot?  Also there's the option of running a virtual windows machine in Linux on which you run C99.  That's what i do when i need a quick and dirty paste-into or the like.

[senior_falcon]

On 12/25/2021 at 5:26 AM, Vorticon said:

Yes it does.

Clipboard does not work for me when running under WINE. I think others had that problem as well. So, unless there is a solution, I will continue running Classic99 using Windows running in a virtual box.

Edited December 28, 2021 by senior_falcon

[xahmol]

Well, I am still doubting to move to full Linux for development or not.

My main PC will definitely remain Windows, but made my old PC an Ubuntu development PC. Especially as many dev tools for retro computers work better in Linux.

But on the one hand I had MAJOR issues in Ubuntu when after kernal update suddenly my Nvidia driver did not work anymore (and 640x480 resolution with the default driver is no fun). Solved it by recompiling the driver from the beta stream, but that was some learning curve to take. Got it back working again though. Disclaimer: this is also caused by this PC being from 2009, so the video card is rather old and the last NVidia driver supporting it also.

 

On the other hand, with Windows 11, Windows Subsystem for Linux became so much better. Full integration in File explorer, and now even graphical GUI Linux applications work, offering a seamless experience.

 

So yes, I do still like my Linux toolchains for retro development, like the TMS9900-GCC C compiler for the TI, but now I do not longer have to compromise with me having Linux when I want to but Windows as default for other day to day work and gaming.

 

Also solves my issue that I could not get Classic99 running under Linux or Wine indeed. Just run it under Windows while developing under Linux on the same machine.

[GDMike]

Deleted

Edited December 29, 2021 by GDMike

[+mizapf]

3 hours ago, xahmol said:

But on the one hand I had MAJOR issues in Ubuntu when after kernal update suddenly my Nvidia driver did not work anymore (and 640x480 resolution with the default driver is no fun). Solved it by recompiling the driver from the beta stream, but that was some learning curve to take. Got it back working again though.

When did that happen? Sorry to ask, but sometimes people talk about issues that happened long ago, so things may have taken a turn for the better in the meantime. I've been using AMD graphic cards for the last decade and rarely had any problems with it (so I don't even remember). But each option has its drawbacks, I know. Also, I'm prefer openSUSE Tumbleweed to Ubuntu (but I have an Ubuntu on my web server and in a VM).

[Tursi]

5 hours ago, GDMike said:

Another question, is there just an assembler that runs in Linux(wine I suppose). Classic99 has a folder and one folder from support folks has a winasm or Asm994a in it.

It's a standalone assembler. But not sure it runs effectively in Linux. 

xdt99 is written in Python and so runs anywhere. It's also arguably the best toolchain available.

 

https://github.com/endlos99/xdt99

 

[xahmol]

6 hours ago, mizapf said:

When did that happen?

Last august. But mind: as I said it was a video card for which the Linux driver officially no longer is supported as it is old. So that did not help.

Then again, I heard from numerous people that things like this are also not that uncommon for NVidia Linux drivers.

 

Was this issue for me:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-signed-hwe-5.11/+bug/1939115

 

See also the official reply on that bug:

Sorry but the NVIDIA 340 driver reached end of life (this is something that NVIDIA decided).

You can either rely on the nouveau driver (by uninstalling the NVIDIA driver), or switch to an older kernel (such as 5.4, which is also available in Focal).

 

Luckily I found also a solution giving an alternative unofficial build for that driver, but that was cumbersome to find and build at first.

 

Note that that same PC and videocard were still working with supported drivers with Windows 10.

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by xahmol

[+mizapf]

1 hour ago, xahmol said:

See also the official reply on that bug:

Sorry but the NVIDIA 340 driver reached end of life (this is something that NVIDIA decided).

You can either rely on the nouveau driver (by uninstalling the NVIDIA driver), or switch to an older kernel (such as 5.4, which is also available in Focal).

 

This reminds me of a famous reaction of Linus Thorvalds, concerning NVidia.

[+Vorticon]

On 12/28/2021 at 7:40 AM, GDMike said:

Another question, is there just an assembler that runs in Linux(wine I suppose). Classic99 has a folder and one folder from support folks has a winasm or Asm994a in it.

It's a standalone assembler. But not sure it runs effectively in Linux. 

It does.